Project Title: Breathing: A Way to Unlock Better Performance
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Bocchino
Internship Location: Digital (New York, NY)
Onsite Mentor: Pilar Tumolo
The anxiety of a graded assessment is something that creeps up on all of us, and there is usually little we can do about it besides bite our lips and be hopeful until time expires. This was my attitude until I discovered the power of breathing, something that we do 20,000 times a day and think little about. We know so little about this necessary process that the answer to our anxiety troubles has been sitting under our nose this whole time. It was because of my fondness for gaining the upper hand that I decided to pursue a project in this area and conduct an experiment to see the efficacy of breathing in test taking situations. The experiment includes a 3rd grade class of students on two separate test taking occasions: the first involves kids taking an assessment as they would regularly do, while the second involves the students engaging in short breathing exercises before the exam. By performing a simple box breathing technique for 3 minutes before the assessment, this study examines the potential of an increase in score performance. The results here may lead to the conclusion that three minutes of breathing exercises can increase test scores. What should now be done to put these practices in play? Should BASIS Independent recommend these practices for students to do on their own or should they be commonplace in each classroom?
My Posts
Concluding Blog Post: Final Thoughts
Jun 19, 2021
The last few months have been much more enjoyable than they previously have been during this time of year. Usually I would be studying and stressing like crazy over the multitude of tests, quizzes, projects, and AP exams that I would be taking had I not chose to do the senior project here at BASIS. […]
Week 10: Final Blog
Jun 04, 2021
This week I completed an assignment that is designed to provide people with breathing techniques for them to calm down during stressful situations. Here were four of them that I thought were some of the most common: before a meeting, before a sports game or competition, before a test, before sleep. For the first situation, […]
Week 9: Experimental Breathing
Jun 01, 2021
The experiment has been conducted! Last Friday, my faculty advisor Ms. Bocchino was grateful enough to go into the third grade class and do the box breathing technique with them before they completed their assessment. I landed on doing this breathing technique because it was the simplest and most effective, and I think that doing […]
Week 8: The 8 Limbs of Yoga
May 21, 2021
This past Tuesday was my weekly meeting with Pilar, my on-site advisor. Because she lives on the other side of America, we are not able to meet in person and these meetings serve as our time to talk about things related to breath, yoga, and meditation. At 8 AM for our talk this week she […]
Week 7: Counting Down Until The Experiment
May 14, 2021
This is one of the final weeks before the experiment will take place. I have been doing lots of research for the past few days on which breathing exercises the 3rd grade participants will be doing with the help of both my faculty advisor, Ms. Bocchino, and my on-site advisor, Pilar Tumolo. I had originally […]
Week 6: Yoga and Test Scores
May 07, 2021
On Tuesday I attended a webinar by BASIS that was hosted by Dr. Jonathan Rosenthal. Dr. Rosenthal is a resident physician in Neurology and a yoga student of Sri Dharma Mittra. He is a very strong believer in the power of yoga and has recently conducted studies that relate to my project. During the hour […]
Week 5: New Beginnings
Apr 30, 2021
This is the first week that I’ve had while doing this project without engaging in my morning Kundalini yoga class. I definitely miss the structure that it provided and how effortless it had become for me to fill the first 45 minutes of my day. Another thing I miss is the clarity that I find […]
Week 4: A New Look At Kundalini Yoga
Apr 22, 2021
Yesterday was the first day out of the last month of doing my yoga course that I actually woke up at 6 am to do the session. Up until this point, I had been doing the recorded versions of the yoga which usually involved me waking up at around 10 and then slowly getting up […]
Week 3: The Science of Breath In Free Diving
Apr 16, 2021
I recently finished the James Nestor book I was reading, Deep. It was a quick, easy read that also allowed me to learn a lot about the lives of free divers and how they train, so I would recommend it to those who are looking for something along those lines. Although I did enjoy reading […]
Week 2: Breath Of Fire
Apr 09, 2021
One benefit of doing this project is being able to share the topic with those around me and also listen in on their feedback and questions. This was recently experienced at one of my soccer practices, where I was explaining to a teammate what I would be doing for the next couple of months instead […]
Week 1: Breathing With A New Mindset
Apr 02, 2021
This week was a lot of yoga and webinars. Kundalini yoga is something that my on-site advisor Pilar Tumolo introduced me to. I’ve known Pilar for my whole life, as she is one of my mom’s closest friends, and I immediately reached out to her to ask about being my advisor due to her specialty […]
Week 0: Introducing Breathing as A Way to Unlock Better Performance
Mar 31, 2021
Hello, My name is Webber Sloan and I’ve been a student here at BASIS since before our Red Hook campus was even built. A lot has changed since then, but the senior project has been something that’s remained in the curriculum here. I’ve been looking forward to doing this project for a while now, and […]